


Just Me

by RequiemForAbsolution



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Alcoholism, Bitter, Bloaters, Friends With Benefits, Heartbreak, Independence, M/M, Resentment, Unreciprocated Love, Unrequited Love, clickers, random tags why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 05:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9533924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RequiemForAbsolution/pseuds/RequiemForAbsolution
Summary: This is a look at Bill and Joel's history, and why Bill decided it had to be "just me". Because when your partner only cares about you as a means for his own survival, it will eventually kill one of you in the end.





	

**Author's Note:**

> "Bill: Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time I had someone I cared about. It was a partner. Somebody I had to look after. And in this world that sort of shit's good for one thing: gettin' ya killed. So, you know what I did? I wisened the fuck up. And I realized it's gotta be just me.
> 
> Joel: Bill, it ain’t – it ain’t like that. 
> 
> Bill: Bullshit. It is just like that."

 

He hadn’t always been fat. No; that had come with the years of alcohol, the fermented liquid that swelled around his organs like maggots on meat. And why did he turn to drink, you might ask? Why, because of Joel, of course. _Of course._

Joel had never cared about him. The only thing Joel ever cared about was long dead and buried. But he came to Bill’s bed, when Bill had awkwardly offered, one night when the sound of the clickers was drowned out in the rain. He’d been a clumsy lover, new to men, always distracted by something else. Bill had managed to bring him to pleasure, then to sleep – but Joel’s eyes had never lost that hard, watchful hazel gaze, and his sleep had been full of the same nightmares it always was.

But Bill had cared about him. Loved him, even. Stoic man, haunted by demons. Strong fighter, resourceful thinker – even if he didn’t care to speak for small talk. That was the proper kind of partner that he wanted in his life. Seemed like, for a while, that he might have.

Except Joel didn’t reciprocate. Never did. Never even looked at him, unless he was drunk and sick on grief. He gave – God, he gave; supplies and food and enough ammunition to arm up an entire god-damn army. But he never really _gave_. Not himself. He never talked about who he’d lost. Never talked about where he’d come from. Mentioned his crazy Firefly brother maybe _twice_ , in the long year spent moving through the countryside, from bolthole to bolthole like hungry rats. That was the only personal information he ever gave. And while it was good to have someone like him at your side – someone who wouldn’t leave you for dead, even if the first of the clicker-turned-bloaters had you surrounded on a truck in a subterranean tunnel – it just… wasn’t good enough.

Because, while Joel never left him behind, Joel was never really there for him in the first place. And though Bill cared for him – made sure the man who was best at survival actually _wanted_ to survive – it was like pissing into the void; nothing ever came back except a bad smell.

Then, one day, the tables turned. Joel had been sick. An infected wound, from a broken window, cut deep into his left arm. And then it was Bill who had had to care for him, for the long and snarling nights. Care for him, by venturing out each day in the sweltering heat to search for medicine, making his way through humidity-dampened fogs of spores, the wet green slicking against his clothes and over the glass eyes of his gas mask.

It was then that Bill, staring through the spore-slimed glass at a group of heavy bloaters as they roamed, restless, through a street, realised that Joel would never reciprocate. That Joel might risk his life for him out of duty, out of partnership – but that Bill would always risk his life for him, out of sheer, adoring love.

He would die for someone who cared for him like you care for a meat-dog – out of necessity. Like he wasn’t human at all. Like he was just another supply. Probably expendable in the end, too.

A cold, calm anger grew in his gut.

He’d nursed Joel back to health – back to the bitter, grieving man who spoke only to convey necessary information, to ask _how are you holdin’ up?_ out of necessity rather than compassion. They’d completed the job together. And they’d gone their separate ways, just like that. And Bill had drunk himself stupid, night after night, and the first few pounds had started to cling to his gut.

Without Joel to watch his back, he’d turned his attention to making traps.

Without Bill to watch Joel’s back – well, the hardass brunette broad who came to their next meet-up answered how damn well he’d been replaced. Unlike him, though, Tess didn’t seem to care. She, like Joel, was a survivor. Someone who didn’t care about anyone unless it was for business. And by the time the two of them came by the highway rendezvous again, Bill was a survivor just like them.

He didn’t care about anybody.

He’d finally wisened up.

 


End file.
